1. Walk On By
2. What The World Needs Now
3. Alfie
4. (They Long To Be) Close To You
5. A House Is Not A Home
6. The Look of Love
7. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
8. That's What Friends Are For
9. I Say A Little Prayer For You
10. Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)

It is said that Burt Bacharach likes his songs to be played  and, by inference, for the lyrics of his collaborators to be sung  exactly as written. Who can blame him? The composer of some seventy top-40 singles since 1962, Bacharach has made it his trademark to populate his pieces with subtle twists and turns that burnish his inimitable footprint  unconventional harmonies, tricky modulations and challenging intervals imbue his iconic melodies; shifting meters and added bars in unexpected places add a bracing tension to the opulent, on-the-sleeve romanticism that his songs convey.For a jazz singer of the caliber of Valerie Joyce, however, those very qualities make Bacharach's oeuvre an intriguing challenge, one rife with creative possibility. On this excellent recital, she and pianist David Hazeltine, a long-standing master at arranging reimagined new standards, find ways to change each composition and make them, as Joyce puts it, interesting and fresh and new while remaining faithful to the emotional thrust of the lyrics.
Ted Panken